Cold Snap

by Macky Santiago

  The Huntsman has continued to advance, but the Queen gestures for it to stop. “No, no. Let her use up the last of her little mementos.”

  She looks to me, her face filled with the kind expression that has fooled millions. “It's time. On your feet, then. Heal yourself and come fulfill your destiny. Besides, we can’t have you bleeding out and dying before we can transport you, now can we?”

  I jab the pen into my thigh as firmly as I can manage. As its contents enter my bloodstream, a streak of silver flashes amidst the bright blue liquid. Nanites, I think, but not the reparative kind.

  As the liquid floods my system, I don’t just feel the calming rush of anesthetics. There was something else here. Something I had asked a friend to hold for me, so I would remember it at just the right time.

  “Any last words, child?” She asks.

  “Sure.” I say as I reconnect to the neuroweave. “Blind Man’s Bluff Protocol: Activate. Let’s play.”

  ◆◆◆

  Public Service Announcement

  Origin: Faldan Space Station

  Code Red. Code Red. Full lockdown conventions activated.

  Please remain where you are for your own safety. Civilians caught wandering outside designated enclosures will be apprehended for violating lockdown conventions.

  Any civilians caught streaming illegal fake broadcasts or accessing unsanctioned streaming feeds will be apprehended. Repeat. Offenders will be apprehended and charged with aiding seditious activities.

  Repeat. Code Red. Full lockdown conventions activated. Remain within designated enclosures for your safety.

  Compliance shall be rewarded. Non-compliance will not be tolerated. Thank you!

  Chapter Six

  As soon as I speak the words, the “bodies” surrounding me light up. The Huntsman senses danger and takes a moment to assess the situation before making his report. “Several high intensity explosives detected, Your Majesty. For your safety, I suggest—“

  “I know!” The Queen seethes, reading off her datapad with the kind of fury I would have savored in different circumstances.

  I mean, I’d have savored it more if I wasn’t high on meds and kind of bleeding out.

  Her facial expressions twist into several fun iterations. I have no doubt that, at this point, she is scanning the bodies around us in an attempt to calculate her next best move. I also have no doubt that she’s found any viable options.

  Bless her heart for trying.

  I, on the other hand, lean back onto the nearest hunk of steel that can hold my weight.

  “Hey, ma.” I say with as much nonchalance as I can manage. “Lemme break it down for you, nice and quick. Although… I think you already know, so I’ll just rattle it off while you stew.”

  She continues to ignore me. So, I rattle on, shaking with exhaustion as I rest my weight fully on the debris.

  “We knew this was a trap the whole time. Gamble number one was whether you’d still go out of your way to capture us, so we prepared for that. Made sure we had leverage.” I say. “Gamble number two was that you wouldn’t harm the data cores, so that’s where we hid the bombs. Also, fun bonus - we repurposed your sentry bots for our nefarious scheme.”

  She was still running scenarios and computing probabilities on her datapad. That’s fine. I rather like gloating, so I go on.

  “I gotta say I’m psyched that you couldn’t tell that the crew were piloting these dupes remotely.” I watch her lose her patience at the inevitable. “Nice touch with the neuroweave jammer though. We did not see that one coming. Although... it kind of fueled the ruse that we needed you to believe. And we all really needed you to believe you’d won. Because hey, nothing says ‘I win’ like the smoking remains of your sworn enemies.”

  Her face was now a mask of unbridled fury. Or rather, the mask was off and her real crazy-face was showing. This evil bitch I could deal with, no problem.

  “I think by now you know that even if you manage to jam the neuroweave again, I’ve already triggered the self-destruct sequence with, oh wait, a dead man’s switch. Meaning if I die, if I leave the vicinity… If I am unconscious in any way, the bombs go off. And you along with them. And… well… me. You get blown up with me.” I continue. “Believe me when I say, nothing would please me more than our mutually assured destruction… Actually, that’s not true. Your sole destruction would be more pleasing, but given this impasse, I’ll take what I can.”

  “You think you’ve won here.” says the Queen, barely containing her fury.

  I love this day, I think giddily.

  “Actually, I think you’ve lost. Jury’s out on whatever the hell I’ve won.” I say, then wince. The med-pen couldn’t quite overpower all the pain. “Any day I stop you from doing your favorite thing is a good day.”

  “My favorite thing.” She repeats, trembling.

  “Yeah, you know… making life a living hell for some folks. Little girls, in particular.” I say nonchalantly.

  I read the data feed from my crew as they continue working on all their assigned tasks. I analyze their updates through my worsening double vision, before I pause to look my former captor in the eyes. “I had a feeling you were taking the princesses to Leghrelnis. Whether that’s true or not, you’re never going to get a chance to do that. At least, not to those girls.”

  “The princesses are already within my grasp! With a simple command, I can have them spirited off to a black site even you haven’t heard of.” The Queen retorts, some of her trademark smugness cutting through her fury.

  “New site, huh? That’s interesting. About that ‘within your grasp’ thing though… I don’t know if you’re right about that.” I analyze the countdown timer Jean Philippe sends me. Forty-five seconds. Oh goodie, and here I thought I would have to wait longer.

  “Insolent child. Commander Ronquillous, report!” The Queen practically yells into her datapad.

  Silence. She yells again. More silence.

  “You might want to check the surveillance feed from Hangar One.” I suggest. Her face turns fun shades of pink and purple while watching whatever footage she's receiving on her datapad. It thrills me how much she tries to keep her composure. “Pretty sure Captain Zavus has the princesses now. You know, just in case you’re wondering what’s happening over there.”

  I wince again. My vitals are dropping from loss of blood. I didn’t even need my HUD to tell me that I’m going to pass out soon.

  “But the Defense Force is…” She says through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, you mean your extremely united forces that would have managed to take on half my crew, a couple of field agents and one defector nice and easy? Yeah. They would have totally been good if they were all in one place.” I say. “You might want to check Gold Quadrant though. You’ll find another wildcard at play.”

  It only takes a few seconds of her scanning through the surveillance feeds before she loses composure completely and throws a tantrum. It would be funny, if she wasn’t a mass murdering tyrant.

  Furiously, she taps her datapad, turning up the volume of the feed. A familiar voice begins to speak.

  “Your evil queen is extra evil and frankly, she had all these terrible plans for your princesses. Don’t you think it’s time Faldan took matters into its own hands? I mean, the evidence is clear. She was going to do some crazy experiments on the girls while fooling you all into thinking she was going to take them to a more secure location for their safety. I say, fight now. Fight today! For honor, and justice and… well, because she’s a just this giant power-hungry uber-cu…”

  I don’t hear the rest of what Theron says because Octavia starts screaming bloody murder once again. “How?? You said you’d rather die than involve the likes of him! Intelligence marked him as operating within the outer systems!”

  “Please. I’m petty, not stupid. There’s no way this op would have worked if he wasn’t so good at what he does.” I wince again, this time from admitting I needed his help and not from the mortal wound on my
side. “Besides, he really is great at being a magnificent distraction. And an absolute pain in the ass.”

  “Distraction?” The Queen asks, suddenly hyperaware. It looks like she's finally onto the fact that there's another game afoot.

  “Well, we also wanted to get evidence of your wrongdoings. And that takes time. So, we took said time, documented all the terrible things you’ve done, especially to me, and will now systematically use it against you!” I finish smugly. “Turns out, your closed network? Not as closed as you’d like.”

  “Nobody will believe you! I may retreat today, but know this. You've no idea the other workshops I have runnning. Places only I know the location of, places not logged onto a single data chip.” She yells manically. “You think you were the last? Ha! There are others. I will raise an army of my children. Good little children. Not insolent, defective miscreants like you! I’ll use every single one of them up if I have to, if it means I am finally rid of you!”

  Her confession chills me and stabs a new shard of despair into my heart, but I do my best not to think of the other children she has tortured over the years since I got free. There will be time for that later, and I swear on my heart, I will deal with it personally.

  “I’m sure they’ll believe me after hearing that.” I say flatly. It takes all of my remaining willpower to contain my rage. “You got all of that, Jaeger?”

  He looks straight at me through my HUD. I didn’t need to see the feed from the Queen’s datapad because I was watching it all. On mute.

  “Every single word. Been broadcasting this whole time.” Theron replies, his voice clear as the feed continues streaming on the Queen's datapad.

  The Queen screams as she breaks the datapad in half. Didn’t think the old bird had that kind of upper body strength. She lunges at me, but her franken-droid stops her. It restrains her going on a tangent about how harming me would trigger the dead man’s switch and that it was no longer a viable option for her to remain here if she wanted ensure her survival. She kept raging, completely ignoring the advice her Huntsman was valiantly suggesting.

  “Hey!” I yell at her in order to get her attention. I don't know where the surge of strength came from, but I had enough to stand up. “Are you gonna kill me and end it here? Or are you going to tuck tail and run? I would end you here and now if I could, but ridding the universe of the evil you’ve choked it with won’t be accomplished by your death. Even though I hate the orders I was given, you’ll live and not be a martyr your cronies can rally the people around. They’ll all know you for the monster that you are eventually, and everyone will get the chance to decide whether to follow you or not. So, will you walk away? Or am I blowing us up? Your call.”

  She breathes heavily for a few seconds, before her composure returns and a familiar mask of calm descends over her face.

  “Mark my words, child. You will burn. You, and your friends. I know how to sever you from them now. Sooner than you can believe possible, I’ll make sure the neuroweave dampening field encompasses an entire planet!” She practically spits at me. “Don’t you just love how experiments help us do things better the next time? Don’t think for a moment my Huntsmen have not learned from this. They'll become knives in the dark, and you and your crew won't see them coming. If there’s anything my momentary lapse in judgement will leave you with, it is this fear: you aren’t the only child of Leghrelnis. ”

  Her words wash over me and I keep my face blank. I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me visibly shaken by her threat. The pretense matters to me because we both know that those words have hit far too close to home.

  We both know she isn’t lying, not about this. This is no manipulation. Or, if it is, it’s her best one yet. If there’s one thing she can’t help doing, it's bragging.

  Her Huntsman grabs her and blasts a hole through the roof of the training yard. I watch as he flies her out, and they are out of sight in seconds

  I power down the “bombs” as soon as my sensors show that she’s out of range. Good timing too, because my auxiliary power cells run out right when I disarm them.

  As my HUD flickers out, I am just another regular human again. There’s enough energy left to receive written messages via neuroweave and I get one from Bellona saying help is on the way.

  Soon enough, a hovercraft busts through the training yard doors and skids to a halt a few meters away from me.

  The doors open, and Doctor Capaldi and Bellona practically leap out. Well, whatever passes for leaping out of a vehicle for bots with no legs that usually hover in midair. The Doctor jabs several needles into me right away, each one bigger than the last. He gently lifts up my arm and begins to mend the gash at my side.

  Seeing these two in front of me now, and sensing the rest of the crew through the neuroweave, I can't help tearing up. For a moment, I truly believed I'd lost them.

  Bellona takes my hand and beams at me with what passes for an idiotic grin. “Looooook.” She says, motioning just over her shoulder.

  Theron Jaeger gets out of the hovercraft's driver’s seat and walks toward me.

  It has been months since I last saw his face. Jade green eyes flecked with amber. Dark brown hair streaked with a few golden strands.

  I'm officially declaring that the blood loss was the cause of my lightheadedness. Yes, that's right, exsanguination.

  Not the look on his face. It’s the look that reminds me how he alone really knows about what happened to me on Leghrelnis. That he’s the only one who saw me on those worktables.

  Of course, the look on his face could have really just been genuine concern at seeing me half-dead. No extra weight from the past.

  “I came here as soon as I could.” He says simply. “I wouldn’t have let her do anything else to you.”

  Yeah, I’ll blame my fast-approaching death on my lightheadedness. I have to constantly remind myself I have very good reasons to hate this man. I can’t remember any at the moment, sure, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking otherwise.

  “You know I don’t really like you, right? Like… at all?” I say weakly.

  “Yeah I don’t know about that.” He says looking me dead in the eyes, as his practically dance with mischief.

  Whatever. I hate him.

  “Well, I know that I can’t patch her up while you're both making googly eyes at each other.” Doctor Capaldi says crossly. I kinda hate him too now.

  Theron gently takes my uninjured arm and slings it over his shoulder. He helps me into the backseat of the hovercraft, as Bellona twirls gleefully on her way to the passenger seat.

  “Patch her up good, Doc.” Theron says as he starts the hovercraft. “We still have to bust out of this station. And before you get all upset again Yuki, Tala and Dropshot are on your ship. It’s just a matter of fighting our way to the Diamond and the Pernix.”

  ◆◆◆

  Encrypted Transmission

  Origin: Vector 27785

  Cold Snap confirmed. Repeat. Cold Snap confirmed. The Sun’s rays are shining as well. Awaiting instructions.

  Encrypted Transmission

  Origin: Alliance Capital Ship Haven Five,

  Vector 559283

  Stand down, but stay on high alert. Report any material change and standby for further instructions.

  Chapter Seven

  I come to in a haze of adrenaline and pain. I have the nagging sense that there is something I should be doing, but haven’t done yet.

  It takes me a moment to realize Doctor Capaldi is stroking my hair. He used to do this when I snuck over to his containment unit as a child. His eyes dart briefly toward the front of the hovercraft, a silent gesture for me to see for myself.